1994: Wired.com, then known as HotWired, invents the web banner ad. Go ahead, blame us. The Mosaic browser was just morphing into Netscape in 1994. And if you think ads slow down page loads now ...

The banner ad that’s widely described as the first ever was a little rectangle purchased by AT&T on HotWired.com in 1994. About 44 percent of the people who saw it actually clicked on it.

Wired magazine's HotWired.com was the first website to display banner ads. Although it's commonly said that the first banner was sponsored by AT&T, HotWired's advertising roster included ...

The first banner ads – those rectangular ads at the top of a web page – looked innocent enough. They made their debut on HotWired, the web offshoot of Wired magazine, in October 1994.

The New York Times is moving away from standardized “banner” advertisements on its website and plans to replace them with its own proprietary display ad formats.